We are closing on the Arctic sea ice minimum. Will it be another Serreze death spiral media opportunity? Or will it be ho-hum- nothing to see here, move along?
Once again I’m inviting readers to submit their best guess, best SWAG, or best dartboard result to the poll for the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook. Deadline, is Monday August 12th, 3PM PDT or 6PM EDT.
Of recent interest has been the slowdown in ice loss, most prominently seen at DMI:
Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) – Centre for Ocean and Ice – Click the pic to view at source
I suggest that you should not be using the DMI graph to forecast, though it it useful for determining short term trends as it is more responsive than the NSDIC graph below, which is averaged.
Here is what the June 2013 forecast submission (which we participated in, but not the July contest due to scheduling issues around July 4th) reports looked like:
WUWT’s submission (average of the top five) was. 4.8 million square kilometers)
The archive of the 2013 contest is available here:
http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2013/june
For a complete overview of Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice, see the WUWT Sea Ice Reference page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Here is the forecast poll, deadline is 3PM Monday August 12th. Bear in mind that traditionally, forecasts in June and July have been too high. Last year’s minimum was 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles) at its lowest point on 16 September, and in June, WUWT readers forecast 4.9 million sq kilometers.
Note: The mean is the monthly average in million square kilometers for September, which is what the contest is looking for. It is not really as interesting as the absolute minimum, but that’s the number ARCUS is looking for.
Choose your value: (for the record, I am choosing 5.5 – Anthony)
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I made a comment earlier about the current ‘consensus’ post by Abraham on Arctic Ice (this is in the UK Guardian and he shares this blog with Dana of SkS)
What I have just seen on his blog defies belief that a once proud and distinguished newspaper could have let itself sink so low.
I posted this on Bishophill a few minutes ago:
“An interesting deletion by guardian moderators on the current Arctic post by Abraham.
A comment by tswash with over 50 recommends has now been deleted!
It contained no expletives or adhoms but provided links and informative background about Arctic conditions in the Holocene!
The deletion of this comment is an absolute disgrace even by Guardian standards.
What the #### has happened to British journalism?”
Here’s the link if you want to see censorship at work.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/aug/12/global-warming-arctic-armchair-scientists
(Apologies in advance)
KDK says:
But a few clicks and some URL-shortening later, you find the plausible reason here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/
08/MARCH/2011. The switch of satellite source data at the start of 2009 introduced a discontinuity in the fields of sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic.
The graph was in error as it showed a continuous record, when the discontinuity was acknowledged. The Met Office deleted the erroneous graph.
===
Thanks for the additiional information. Perhaps now you can explain why there is no “discontinuity” in the archived graph at 2009 and how such a supposed “discontinuity” accounts for the continual rise in ice coverage from 2007 to 2010 being turned into something almost flat.
I’d seen the satellite change comment from M.O. before and taken it at face value but now having seen the data they produced prior to the change, it does not match what they claim.
Surely the met office doesn’t want to be so far back in the pack this year. The arctic N of 80 is freezing up early – even this should reduce the possibility of break up by a storm if it continues to cool.
RoyFOMR –
The Guardian blog praises the sea ice blog of ‘Neven’, so I thought it worth a look. I found it difficult to read past the the first two paragraphs of the report for Aug 4th 2013, because the adjectives immediately indicated the doomster nature of Neven who really seems to want the ice to melt as rapidly as possible, e.g.(emphasis mine)
‘the weather really did switch from the IDEAL set up for ice decrease………to…..the NEXT BEST for ice decrease’
and,
‘this (lack of ice loss) is SO CRAZY that I hardly have words for it’.
Perhaps ‘unprecedented’ would be a good one from the CAGW lexicon
My pick is a consensus pick. I showed the chart to our Scottish Terrier, our Cairn Terrier, and our two Ragdoll cats. The cats looked at the chart for a nanosecond, saw the lines going everywhere, thought I had the laser out for playtime, and slapped their paws on where they thought the line was going; 5.2. The Scotty was excited by the prospect of some cold and went with 5.5. The Cairn was hoping for a little more warmth and went with 4.4.
Hmmm…. what to do. Well, I added up their estimates, divided by the square root of the number of fleas present, minus a stray tick, and came up with 4.9. (They say animals can sense the way the weather is going, right?)
@KDK:
03/DECEMBER/2010. The SSM/I satellite that was used to provide the data for the sea ice analysis in HadISST suffered a significant degradation in performance through January and February 2009. The problem affected HadISST fields from January 2009 and probably causes an underestimate of ice extent and concentration.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/the-mystery-of-the-disappearing-graph/
Rather than correcting and posting the updated graph plus a link to the old one for sake of verification and transparency, they have just pulled all graphs and gone silent on the issue.
Data is still available in a rather complicated gridded fromat so it will now require quite a bit of digging even to get a graph to compare it to. The fact this is no longer visible in the public climate fodder presentation suggests that it may still be telling a different story to NSIDC.
More time wasting required to see the data they don’t want the public to see.
My prediction is a good chance to be 70% below normal for the base period with minimum extend between 4.2 and 5.46. I am using the National Hurricane Center method of making a large enough spread to almost always be close.
It confuses me as to why so many people are so interested in the “accordion metric” sea ice extent. A metric where 100 km2 solid ice would be reported as 100km2 extent and the same ice spread out evenly would be reported as 667km2 extent, and again, if compacted by the wind would be reported as 100km2. Does not anyone report on sea ice area? Is there a good reason I have missed? Btw. wasn´t the criterion for sea ice extent changed from 10% to 15% not too long ago?
4.8 but last year I predicted I would be wrong this year. If the extent stays above 4.8 it will be interesting to see how quickly the ice extent recovers (as I recall a discussion about lower ice extent results in quicker recovery). And I wonder how the UK Met Office will explain their 3.4 prediction.
I voted 5.5.
Is it just my imagination or have Al Gore and James Hansen been kinda quiet these days? I think Hansen got out just at the right time.
Friends:
I would welcome a clear explanation of the purpose of this poll.
Nobody has a model of the ice formation which includes prediction of all significant factors (e.g. occurence, magnitude and geographical site of future storms). Hence, every suggestion in answer to the poll is a guess.
In a few weeks we will know the reality of measured minimum 2013 Arctic ice extent, and we will be able to compare it to the guesses. But, so what?
Please, will somebody tell me the value of any such guess and/or guesses. I don’t see it.
Richard
Can’t this number be “adjusted” so it fits the model output? Lower this years, and go back and raise the ice area in the 1930’s. Or maybe just announce that it is all gone, regardless of measurement. …… 4.4 x10^6 sq. kms.
Anthony, I think the DMI wants you to use this chart, not the one at the top of the post:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
richardscourtney says: August 12, 2013 at 5:01 am
It’s a bit of fun Richard. Or does everything have to be ultra ultra serious, and scientific? Lighten up.
I will gently remind everybody that:
1,000,000 sq km of sea ice corresponds to entire area between the north pole an 85 north latitude.
1,000,000 sq km also just happens to correspond to what the CAGW-industry has decided to claim has an “ice-free Arctic” and thus meet their need for catastrophic … something.
2,000,000 sq km covers everything from the pole down to just at 83 north latitude.
(3,000,000 sq km gets you all the way down to a “cap” over the pole down to right at 81 north latitude. In reality, the actual Arctic ice cap is a bit skewed to the south towards the Bering Strait, and its southern edge is actually closer to the pole on the UK-Iceland arc, but a symetric cap is accurate enough for almost all calc’s. )
For reference with respect to that much-touted “24-hour-per-day” solar exposure: By Aug 21-22, the sun will set for latitude 78 north, which corresponds to a sea ice extents of right at 5,500,000 sq km. That would leave one full month of ever-increasising solar night hours for anybody handicapping an area between 5.5 Mkm2 and 4.0 Mkm2
Still haven’t quite figured out what will be catastrophic about an ice-free Arctic Ocean in mid-September since the numbers show that at late-August on – essentially from now until next May – open Artic ocean water at the edge of the sea ice loses more heat through evaporation and increased radiation losses than it can gain through absorption of solar energy into the exposed ocean water…..
But, they need – desperately “need” and crave their Arctic sea ice loss. It is the one remaining threat in their arsenal of propaganda and extrapolation.
What happened with the storm that just ended?
Hi Richard,
Always appreciate your comments on a range of threads and your focus on the science. To me, the purpose of this poll is to demonstrate that curve-fitting guesses by the layman are no worse than any apparently-sophisticated model run on a taxpayer-funded supercomputer. In other words, just as you suggest 🙂
In demonstrating the inadequacy of the official, sophisticated guesses on Arctic ice extent, the poll and its final results offer the opportunity to reflect on whether the suite of models used by the IPCC AR5 are any better at predicting something much more complex, like multi-decadal global climate.
My original prediction is still in the cards (4.9). This was based on sea ice friendly wind conditions. Up until the last couple of days those conditions persisted. However, the recent switch could be quite significant given the sea ice is thin and fractured making it easier to push out into warmer waters. If this continues the colder air in the Arctic won’t save the ice. The water temperature is much more important. OTOH, if these winds are temporary then the colder air will restart the freezing process earlier than normal and even my guess will likely be too low.
I’ve crunched the numbers here (I have a big database of all the numbers going way back).
If the NSIDC sea ice extent continues the trend from its 1981-2010 average climatology, the (monthly average for the) September Minimum will be 5.26 million sq. kms.
In practise, the last few years have seen a greater-than-average melt up to the end of September and the ice is not as solid as it used to be, so the Minimum could be closer to 4.9 to 5.1 million.
Nice Zoom-in of the NSIDC sea ice numbers here which should allow one to really nail this down.
http://s8.postimg.org/nindwvsed/NSIDC_Sept_Min_Proj_Aug11_2013.png
Hi Brad,
Looks from the Navy loops of ice concentration as though it may have whipped up the area of lower-density ice between the pole and the Laptev Sea sector a little more. This area was previously ripped up quite a bit by a storm in mid-late May. Thus far, the Canadian archipelago seems not to have been particularly affected.
This section of ice may now be more susceptible to melting, but probably more likely from underneath by the water now than from above by the sun. I doubt there’s enough time left for a large area of <15% concentration to develop, so the "ICE-FREE NORTH POLE!!!" headlines will have to wait.
If someone can give me a rough estimate of the number of times the Ice breakers will plough back and fourth to the pole between now and the expected minimum I might be able to come up with a number.
“Steve from Rockwood says:
August 12, 2013 at 4:43 am
4.8 but last year I predicted I would be wrong this year. If the extent stays above 4.8 it will be interesting to see how quickly the ice extent recovers (as I recall a discussion about lower ice extent results in quicker recovery). And I wonder how the UK Met Office will explain their 3.4 prediction”
They will wheel out the usual garbage that the ice extent changes are entirely consistent with their recently revised computer models.
Come on chaps we all know it will be 5.5, well that’s what I have voted anyway.
Mr Watts,
Apparently they have a bet going at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
Says the center’s senior research scientist, Mark Serreze, “We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is ‘does the North Pole melt out this summer?’
Of course, i will be only taking my advice from the experts.
Only a fool would ignore this advice and a fool and their money is easily parted:
“They predict that in September, there is a good chance that the ice will be gone on the pole.”
From Robert E. Peary to recent solo explorer Wave Vidmar (pictured), many have travelled to the geographic North Pole to view the icy spot.
However, photos like this may soon be a keepsake, as the North Pole ice is melting like ice cream in the summer sun, and may be ice-free as soon as this year.
Not above a bit of scolding of global warming skeptical, Serreze says, “It’s a situation where we hate to say we told you so, but we told you so.”
So, no ice this year.
Oh, wait, this prediction is dated 2008. Can I have my money back?
http://www.dailytech.com/Global+Warming+to+Melt+North+Pole+Ice+Cover+For+First+Time+in+Recorded+History/article12218.htm
Oh dear, it seems I had experienced cranial cavitations when I typed my pick prior. Please permit me to correct it. 4.9 not the prior. Darn preview bar distracted me 😉